


Brushing

by tbat



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, everyone is probably OOC because it's been a bit since i played the game whoops sorry, gonna keep it real here this whole thing is predicated on the fact that prompto is cute and blonde, it's just some dumb fluff though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 22:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbat/pseuds/tbat
Summary: The beautiful boys take a trip to the chocobo ranch. Noctis brushes a cute chocobo chick.





	Brushing

"Guys!  _Guys!_ You see that?!" Prompto leaned sideways, the upper half of his body hanging precariously out of the Regalia as he pointed off into the distance. Ignis quietly steered closer to the center of the road, just in case Prompto managed to smack off of a road sign. It wouldn't be the first time.

"See  _what?"_ Noctis grumbled, opening his eyes just wide enough to squint, but not wide enough to see what he was actually squinting at.

"The chocobo ranch's just up ahead!" Prompto pulled himself back into a safety-conscious sitting position, only to immediately put himself in exciting new flavours of danger by leaning forward and repeatedly tapping Ignis' shoulder.

"Can we stop? Can we? Can we?" he chirped. Each new "can we" was punctuated by an additional prod to Ignis' increasingly sensitive shoulder. He sighed the deep, weary sigh of a man who knows that all the roads this conversation could head down were highways to hell, and he was trapped in a car with broken air conditioning.

Either they don't let Prompto play with the chocobos and he sulks and starts kicking the back of Ignis' chair and giving him back pain for the rest of the day, or they let him frolic in Bird Paradise and lose an entire day to his whims. Neither option appealed to Ignis right now. Rather than bear the burden of this decision alone, he decided to introduce his future King to the concept of democracy instead.

"We can't make a diversion such as that based on your wants alone, Prompto. What say we put it to a vote?" he said patiently, "Everyone, raise your hand if you're in agreement with Prompto."

Both of Prompto's hands immediately catapulted skywards, small yelps of excitement punctuating his rapid arm-flails. Noctis wriggled slightly in his half-sleep. For a fraction of a second, his arm raised up as he repositioned himself. This did not escape Prompto's keen eye.

"Noct said yes!"

An ambiguous grunt came from Noctis' direction. Prompto optimistically picked out the very slight upward inflection towards the end of the noise and decided Noctis was very enthusiastic about the chocobo day-trip, actually. Two in favour. Technically.

That left Ignis and Gladio. Ignis seemed a poor prospect for conversion. Gladio, however, was malleable. His abs were made of steel- but was his will?

"C'mooon, Gladio! It'll be fun!"

"For you, maybe," Gladio muttered, arms thoroughly folded and refusing to engage in any upward motion.

"But you like chocobos, too, don'tcha?" Prompto said pleadingly.

"Sure, I like 'em. Not enough to spend all day with 'em, though."

Prompto's mouth hung open in horror at the Controversial Opinions being sent his way.

"Wh-but they're so  _cute!"_

"Yeah," Gladio replied on autopilot. Once Prompto was set off, you either tuned out or wanted to throw him out the car. For the sake of camaraderie, Gladio leaned toward half-listening at best.

"And fluffy!"

"Yeah."

"And those little 'kwehs' are just...just  _the best!"_

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't you wanna spend all day with birds  _that_ great?"

"Yea- aw, dammit..." Gladio said, cupping his head in his hands.

"Gladio said yes! That's  _verbal confirmation,_ baby! We're goin' to the chocobo ranch!" Prompto said. He clenched his fists, converting his raised hands into victorious fist pumps. Ignis sighed once again, his cunning plot to divide the blame for shooting Prompto down itself shot down in flames.

"My apologies, Gladio," he said quietly. Gladio frowned miserably.

"This is all because we let him have that second bar of chocolate. You know how he gets, Iggy."

"I simply thought he deserved the treat. Clearly...I was mistaken," Ignis said in a low, solemn tone.

With a heavy heart and an awareness that half their funds were about to disappear down a chocobo's eager beak, Ignis made the turn into the Wiz Chocobo Ranch carpark, the Regalia slowly coming to a halt. Prompto leapfrogged over the side of the car, not even waiting to open the doors before sprinting towards his flock of one true loves.

Before he could unleash a deadly flying hug on the nearest feathered friend, however, Prompto noticed a large sign. It looked fairly fresh and clean, like it'd just been put up a few days ago. There, the words that Prompto had longed to read his entire life were written in large, yellow letters, accompanied by a crudely drawn picture of a chocobo chick.

"CHOCOBO GROOMING NOW AVAILABLE!

TAKE CARE OF YOUR VERY OWN BIRD, HERE AT THE RANCH!

FEED IT, WASH IT, BRUSH IT! ALL FOR ONLY 1500 GIL!"

Prompto chose to ignore the final line of text, reading "recommended ages: 7 to 12."

If you added seven and twelve together you got nineteen, and that was  _almost_ his age.

He was therefore the target market, he reasoned, as his hand plunged into his pocket, fumbling desperately for the money. By the time he'd reached 1200 gil, Noctis had arrived, standing just behind him and scanning the sign slowly.

"You gonna go for it?" he asked. Prompto jumped slightly at the sudden noise, but quickly turned towards Noctis with an eager grin.

"Heck yeah I am! You wanna join?"

Noctis' gaze flicked to the sign, then back to Prompto's joyful smile. He shrugged, cracking a small smile of his own.

"Sure. Why not?"

Prompto's grin grew a little wider, his arm shooting out and grabbing Noctis' as he dragged him towards the ticket booth. Just before they reached the booth, he stopped, humming in thought.

"Hey, Noct," he said, nervously fiddling with the small pile of gil in his hand, "You, uh...you wouldn't happen to have any money on you, would ya?"

"Uh...yeah? Don't worry, I was gonna pay for myself."

"It's, uh...more like..." Prompto's face flushed red. Noctis suppressed a small chuckle at his friend's flustered expression. "I'm...about a hundred short. You couldn't lend me some, could ya?"

Noctis let out a short laugh. Trust Prompto to forget to check if he can even afford something until he's literally a foot away from having to pay up.

"Sure, sure. Here," Noctis said as he tossed a gil coin towards Prompto. He let out a shout of surprise, lurching forward and clumsily catching the coin, just barely managing to prevent the rest of his gil from sliding out of his hands.

"Th-thanks, buddy," he said with another grin, before dashing towards the booth. Noctis followed suit, pulling out his own money.

For all his exuberance, Prompto did know how to handle situations a little more delicately when needed.

Such as when the woman operating the booth snorted at the clearly grown men demanding tickets to something rather explicitly for children, and Prompto simply gave her a sad frown and a shake of the head to let her know he was sad that she evidently hated having fun so much. As opposed to getting into an arguement with her and actually saying these words directly to her face.

Noctis barely reacted at all. Chocobos were nice, though he wasn't  _quite_ as enamoured with them as Prompto was. He'd be damned if anyone was going to tell him he was too old for chocobos.

With gleaming eyes, a bucket of gyshal greens in one hand, and a small grooming set in the other, Prompto marched towards the chocobos, ready to give them the TLC they so desperately needed. Noctis trailed behind him with a fond smile and a considerably lighter bucket of greens.

As it turned out, food cost extra. Noctis had spent most of his remaining money on the gyshal greens, only to hand the majority off to Prompto. It just seemed  _right._ There was a certain innocent joy in Prompto's eyes as he'd exclaimed "I could feed  _so many of them!,"_ that let him know he'd made the right decision.

Prompto came to a halt, bending down in front of a tiny chocobo chick milling around near the stables. He reached into his bucket, breaking off a small chunk of his gyshal greens and laying them on the floor in front of the chick. With a quiet "kweh?" it waddled towards its meal and began happily pecking at the corners.

Prompto let out a squeal of pure joy.

"They're so  _cute,_ Noct! Man, I wish I had one..." he said wistfully. His gaze was fixed completely on the chick as it enjoyed its food.

"They grow up, y'know," Noctis said, crouching down next to Prompto.

" _I know,"_ Prompto said with the supremely confident tones of a man who is very much prepared for the consequences of his actions. Eyes still firmly trained on the winged light of his life, Prompto's hand felt around for the small brush in his grooming kit and grabbed hold of it.

The chocobo had been fed. Now it needed to  _look its best._

Slowly, carefully, he slid his free hand underneath the chick, fingers prodding against its legs and prompting it to step up into the palm of his hand. He brought his now considerably fluffier hand towards his chest, cradling his precious baby chocobo. He lifted the brush towards the chick, very gently pressing it against its feathers. The chick let out a content kweh as it sat down in Prompto's hand.

"Noct!  _Noct! Look!"_ he whispered, giving the chick slow, long brushes. "C'mon, you go get one, too!"

Noctis smiled, and shrugged, watching the chocobo chick relaxing in Prompto's palm.

"I'm good watching yours for now."

"What?! Dude, don't you wanna get a cute little chocobo chick of your own and just...brush it?" he said, his voice growing increasingly high and fawning as he spoke.

"I guess," Noctis said, picking up his own brush and sliding closer to Prompto. His eyes hadn't left the chocobo chick this entire time. Noctis could've been a hundred miles away and speaking to him via megaphone, and Prompto probably wouldn't have noticed for a good half an hour. He was pretty much oblivious to anything Noctis might do,

Such as, say, reach up towards Prompto's blonde, fluffy hair, and start running his brush through it. Gently, of course. Wouldn't want to catch it on any tugs.

True to form, Prompto didn't seem to notice the constant stroking sensation going on around his hair for about five minutes, before eventually realizing that wind didn't  _usually_ feel like this. He slowly turned towards Noctis with a confused expression.

Seeing that Noctis was, in fact, brushing his hair did not help his expression. It just added a small coating of red to it.

"Uh, Noct...What you doin' there, buddy?" he said apprehensively.

"What do you mean?" Noctis said, rather pointedly refusing to stop the brushing, although he did have to twist his arm a little to continue reaching Prompto's hair.

"Y'know, the...brushing."

Noctis gave him a small shrug.

"You said I should go brush a cute chocobo chick."

Prompto blinked in confusion.

"You know you're brushing  _me,_ right?"

"Yep."

Prompto stared at Noctis for a few seconds, assembling the puzzle pieces in his mind. Eventually, he noticed that they were spelling out the words "He Said You're Cute" in giant banana-yellow letters.

In smaller letters underneath it was "He Compared You To A Chocobo." This brought with it a certain amount of joy, since Prompto always tried to live his life with the carefree splendor of the noble chocobo. But the cute part was a little more urgent a matter to attend to.

A strangled noise plopped out of Prompto's mouth at the realization. The majority of his face felt a fresh coat of paint was in order, and decided a deep red was best.

"N-Noct, d-did you just-" he babbled.

"Yep."

"Y-You think I'm-"

"Yep."

Prompto took a deep breath, glancing down at his chocobo chick. It brought him a sense of tranquil, fluffy peace.

"That's...a lot to process, dude," he said slowly.

"Oh yeah?" Noctis replied with a smile, and a mild blush of his own, "You bought an all-day ticket, right? You've got plenty of time to think about it."

He stood up, turning his gaze towards another chocobo chick loitering around the other end of the stables. He figured he may as well get one of his own. As he walked over to scoop it up, Prompto called after him.

"Hey, Noct! You're...you're a cute chocobo, too! But like...a cool, black one! Y'know, like you see in the races? They're cute, but they're cool! You're one of those! I guess!"

"...Thanks?" Noctis replied as he kidnapped his new chick.

Watching from afar, Gladio leaned back in his chair, slurping down another forkful of his Cup Noodles- the only thing that had comforted him in this trying time. He set it on the table and gave Ignis a small nudge.

"Well, there's a thing," he said, pointing at their Prince and his bumbling friend. "What do you make of that?"

Ignis stared at the pair for a moment, lost in thought.

"It's certainly...a development," he said. "I must admit, I'd hoped Noct's flirting technique would be less..."

"Stupid?"

"...I'd have preferred a more delicate term, but I suppose that is a rather concise summary, yes."

"You think we should say something?"

Ignis shook his head.

"No, perhaps it's best we let them explore this on their own terms. Although..." he said, a frown on his lips, "If Noct doesn't make any improvements on  _that_ , we may need to introduce some special training."

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first (and possibly only?) FF15 fic so apologies if I've screwed certain things up, especially with characterisation. The intrusive thought "what if Noctis called Prompto his cute little chocobo chick" took up residence in my head and this is the dire consequence.


End file.
